


Strong Enough

by Skelehawk



Category: Rockman X | Mega Man X
Genre: Bad Ending, Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Capture, Gen, Reluctant Fighting, Restraints, Rockman X7 | Mega Man X7
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-24 15:55:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21800536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skelehawk/pseuds/Skelehawk
Summary: Axl faces Red deep within the bowels of the Crimson Palace...Alone.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	1. Chapter 1

“We’re… alone?”

“Not quite.” Red’s voice echoed around the barren chamber. All that occupied the space were dozens of columns, rising out of the mist below. Two lone figures stood on pillars mere feet away from each other, faces clouded with mistrust barely strong enough to mask the overwhelming relief at knowing the other was still in one piece. “The professor could be anywhere. Even if he’s not in this very room, he has ears throughout this whole facility. We’re being monitored.”

“I’ll keep my guard up.” Axl shivered. Where was the ground beneath them? How far would he fall, _if_ he fell, before shattering into a million pieces on the earth below? His gaze flicked back to Red. Better not to think about it.

The older reploid simply sighed, trying to pull himself from the void of his own thoughts. His scythe clicked softly against the top of his pillar. “I know you didn’t come here to talk, Axl.” The blade gleamed in the low light. “We should get this started.”

Axl’s hands dropped to his sides, pulling the twin pistols’ grips into his palms. He clung to them like a lifeline. “Y-yeah.” Fingers crept toward the triggers. “Probably should.” Lined the barrels up with Red’s head.

_BANG!_

His target was gone. Before Axl even had time to glance around, the lethally sharp blade of Red’s scythe slammed into his back, sending him flying headfirst into the bottomless abyss. _It’s not time yet. This isn’t the end._ With barely a moment to spare, Axl’s thrusters kicked in, propelling him just high enough to get his feet on the edge of a low pillar. This wasn’t safe, however; if he didn’t keep moving, Red could easily pinpoint his location and knock him off again with ease. He dashed to the edge of the pillar and jumped to the closest one in sight, blindly sending a few bullets behind him upon landing. Two telltale _tnk!_ s indicated that his intuition was spot-on.

“Always were a quick learner, weren’t you, Axl?” 

The voice was right next to him. In a panic, Axl dashed to another column, struggling to keep his balance. He chanced a look over his shoulder. Instead of the expected, narrowly avoided scythe to the face, Axl was confronted with the sight of Red raising his weapon above his head, twirling it around and around in some sort of mad dance. _Where did he pick up techniques like this?_ Axl was already being lifted off of his feet in a conjured cyclone before the obvious answer seared his mind. _The professor. Of course._ The wind dropped him down right into the arc of another of Red’s slashes. Too much more of this and Axl was toast. His small, lightweight body wasn’t suited for taking such high powered hits, core already straining with the energy required to keep him moving after nearly being sliced in half by the first of Red’s attacks. A third or _maybe_ fourth solid shot would be the nail in the coffin. He needed to get serious.

Considering that his bullets barely left a dent in Red’s armor, it was clear that something with a bit more firepower was necessary to start turning the tide in a favorable direction. G-Launcher it was, then. He activated his weapons system while leaping away from Red’s next attack, feeling the individual pieces of his pistols meld together into a new configuration in his hands. Jump, jump, look for an opening, send a shot behind himself when landing solidly on a column. _Boom._

“Nngh!” 

Bullseye. Never would he have thought that hearing his mentor’s pained grunt would be a victory, if a begrudging one, but it _was._ Somehow, it was easier to stomach if he pretended that they were sparring, just like the old days. When landing a single blow on Red was the entire goal of the practice, and when Red hit him back it was with a blunt stick. The scythe was his Maverick weapon. He wasn’t supposed to raise it against the innocent, against civilians, or against his _fami-_ Axl’s finger pulled the trigger.

_Boom!_

No time to be thinking like that. Red was Maverick now. He was the rabid dog that needed to be put down for its own good. 

Axl let off another shot. This time, it whizzed past Red’s form and disappeared into the mists. Axl might be a quick learner, but his mentor was too. His launcher was powerful but slow. He’d need to start timing his shots to line up with Red’s attacks rather than relying on a weapon that Red wasn’t familiar with to land a few surprise hits. He acted on the defensive, dodging blow after blow and leaping away just in the nick of time to keep his head attached to his torso.

When Red raised his scythe heavensward again, Axl was ready. A breeze tickled at his boots, but the sensation was useful this time, guiding him to safety on an untargeted column as gale-force winds engulfed his prior perch. He was able to land two explosive shots on Red before his foe could recover, though the third that he loosed Red’s way hit nothing but his shadow, leaving Axl startlingly open. It was only by a miracle that he wasn’t struck by the inevitable retaliatory blow.

Several exchanges later, Axl realized in growing horror that he wouldn’t be able to keep this up forever. His core was beginning to warm. His cooling systems were expelling heat as quickly as they could. Axl peered back at his opponent.

Red was still slashing at an unrelenting pace, but each pass was becoming more forceful, less focused on maintaining his impeccable accuracy towards weak points and more on simply trying to hit Axl _at all._ His crimson armor was greyed and dented where the G-Launcher had left its marks. Red was wearing down, too. 

Axl still had a chance. _Time to mix things up._

With renewed vigor, the lithe reploid hurled himself directly at Red, relying on the sudden shift from their established song and dance to throw his mentor off guard. This was a risk he had to take. For X. For Zero. For the family that he’d lost to the machinations of a shadowy figure’s sick war mongering. 

Red was completely unprepared for Axl to latch onto his chest, one arm around his neck, and the other pulling the trigger of the weapon, firing at point-blank range. 

_Boom._

Twin cries of agony rang out through the chamber, one almost a squeal and the other a guttural groan. The figures fell.

Red clattered to his knees, his breastplate cracked and smoking. Some nameless dark liquid dripped onto the floor from his wounds. Axl had barely been able to activate his boosters in the midst of his mutual immolation, though in his near success was able to put the gap of a pillar in between himself and Red. He was heaving on the ground, his own armor covered in fractures from the force of the blast. He looked up at the sound of soft chuckling.

“The Hunters did you some good, eh?” Red’s toothy grin met his gaze. “I thought they might. Seemed cruel to keep a little bird all cooped up when there is so much _world_ out there to explore.” As quickly as it had appeared, Red’s smile faded. “You fought hard. Brought me closer to a total offline than anyone has before. But I need you to come back with me.”

Axl froze for a split second before scrabbling to his feet, eyes darting around as he frantically searched for his gun. He whirled around to see a ghostly clone of Red dragging it across the column, just out of his reach.

“Red, what the _hell-”_

“Learned a few new tricks.” He could feel Red’s vents exuding heat onto his back. “I’ll make it quick.” The tip of Red’s scythe cut into the base of his neck with surgical precision, severing a vital power cable through layers of silicone and metal. Axl’s systems immediately began shutting down to preserve themselves; alerts began flashing blurrily in his faltering consciousness. 

A voice, _Red’s voice,_ cleaved through the blanket of darkness as he was pulled under.

_“Let’s go home.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haven't posted anything in a very long time, and never on this account, but wanted to add to the underrepresented Axl collection on this site. 
> 
> I dearly appreciate every one of you; please have a wonderful day, and thank you for reading. 
> 
> Edit: This was posted as a one-shot, but Axl needs closure so here we go


	2. Chapter 2

Dark, starry nights clutching onto Wind Crowrang’s back were Axl’s favorite. Sure, they never occurred without an underlying violent cause, but the calm before the storm was something that the duo reveled in. They could be flying into a Maverick bust, or performing a simple reconnaissance mission. Even if Crowrang were flying Axl towards certain doom, the comparatively short reploid doubted that he would care. The twinkling stars above mirroring the tiny lights of ragtag reploid encampments below was a reboot for the soul.

It was peaceful, up in the skies. Few would dare to challenge a bird to a contest of aerial maneuverability. A single wrong move would mean a fall of several hundred feet. 

And so, it was quiet. Empty. 

_ Beautiful. _

Of course, all good things had to come to an end, eventually. Crowrang would let his altitude drop towards the ground, back into potentially hostile territory. Axl would have to run his sensory scans at full power once more. He didn’t mind danger, hell, he  _ lived _ for the thrill of a well-placed bullet rupturing a Maverick’s power core. 

...But he’d still look forward to the next time that he and Crowrang would run a mission together.

What Axl had never experienced before was  _ melancholy _ upon leaving Crowrang’s shoulders. He couldn’t quite place  _ why _ a lingering feeling of both fondness and dread would settle in his circuits when his boots met the ground that night, but it wouldn’t leave him be. Even as he rushed into the enemy base, incapacitating a security drone and stealing its likeness to wear as a malignant facade, the apprehension lingered. Grew. Morphed into a state of near-panic.  _ What was Crowrang doing? _ The avian reploid had some sort of hand in this mission’s success, but Axl couldn’t put his finger the reason for his involvement. 

He’d figure out soon enough. Hopefully. Still, the irrational conclusion that he shouldn’t have left Crowrang behind at the factory’s doors sank into his subconscious like a stone in water. 

A long, long feeling half-hour later, Axl had rerouted around a number of oxidizing piles of ancient reploid frames strewn about, seemingly recently relocated to block an intruder’s forward path. The Maverick foreman was said to reside in an antiquated suite somewhere in the west wing of the facility. 

It would seem logical, then, to assume that he might be residing behind a decaying wooden door bearing a plaque that proudly proclaimed “ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICES” in a bold, capital typeset. Axl grabbed a cloaked pistol in one hand, and brought the other to the rusted handle. Do or die time. He threw the door open.

An alarmingly familiar, crimson-plated war machine stood over the smoldering husk of Axl’s target. The creak of the smaller reploid’s entry sent him whirling around, glowing saber at the ready.    
  
Axl immediately dropped his disguise, knowing that a split-second of hesitation would leave him as lifeless as the Maverick on the floor. “Zero, it’s me! I didn’t realize that Base was after this guy too!”

Zero froze in his tracks. “...Axl?” The beam saber retracted, leaving the two in near-pitch darkness. Axl’s dimly glowing core was their sole source of light. “Where are you?”

Axl did a double-take. “What?” His feet acted without his input, slowly bringing him to step away from Zero. Something was wrong with this scenario.

“You need to get out of here. It’s my duty to eliminate this virulent locale, whether anyone’s left alive in it or not.” He kicked the corpse of the Maverick with his boot. “Just needed to ensure that the ringleader was offlined before ignition.”

“Ignit- Zero,  _ what?” _ Axl backed out of the room, shouting at the Hunter from the hallway. “The floor plans are useless for navigation out of this place! There’s rubble  _ everywhere _ .” Horror crept into his emotional processors. The blank expression on Zero’s face was shifting into something between a grimace and an unhinged smile.

Zero wasn’t supposed to look like that. He wasn’t supposed to look like an infected reploid deciding whether or not to ensure that a suicide pact came to fruition. He  _ wasn’t-  _ “Then you’ll just have to go down with this tainted wreck, Axl.” He slipped his saber onto his back and converted his lower arm into a buster.

Axl broke out into a run. There was no stopping this. At the very least, he could attempt to stay ahead of the Hunter’s frenzy. At least he would have  _ tried. _

“This whole place is going to burn to the  _ ground.” _ A fireball erupted mere inches from Axl’s fleeing form. Zero’s manic laugh followed in turn.

_ “Burn.” _

\-----------------------

“-core, he’s too  _ hot.” _

“It’s proof that he’s coming back online. Connections are being routed through the rewired cables and an immense amount of processing power is being employed.”

Axl was numb.

...No, that wasn’t right. He wasn’t numb, he just couldn’t feel any physical sensation at all. His systems were unable to detect cutaneal input, meaning that his skin… was offline? How did  _ that _ manage to happen? Thankfully, his aural receptors were able to ground him in this dark, formless void.

“Haven’t his storage drives been absorbing energy for almost an hour?”  _ Red. That was Red. _

“Full system startups take time, and I had to comb through his recently written data. Now quit the chit-chat while I get him stabilized or leave.”  _ And that was… familiar. He’d heard the same deep grumble multiple times.  _

The voices promptly quieted, leaving Axl to contemplate the more subtle noises surrounding him. Humming machines, his own core’s gentle whir, the occasional clanking of heavy reploid boots pacing the floor… He knew the last sound far too intimately. Red was worried. Red  _ always _ paced when he was worried. 

Every so often, Axl would hear a spark inside of his body. He couldn’t feel it - until, suddenly, he could. A single, startling jolt of awareness radiated out from his core, traveling through his chest and into his extremities in less than a second. Pain in the back of his neck, burning in his torso, a softness tickling his legs, cold encasing his wrists and ankles, and synthetic fingertips roaming the surface of his exposed core all hit him at once, forcing a yelp from his newly onlined vocal synthesizer. The fingertips shifted, and two hands pressed down  _ hard _ on his shoulders. Axl opened his eyes.

The circuit-chilling gaze of Sigma stared back. His head was haloed in the blinding ray of a surgical lamp. “Your protégé awakens, Red.” The ancient Maverick glanced across the room.

Axl  _ screamed. _ He was dreaming. This had to be another nightmare, just another hallucinated fight against Zero. But as he attempted to wriggle from Sigma’s grasp, as his hands and feet were prevented from moving by metal bands anchored to his steely operating table, the terror truly set in. 

He was awake, missing his weapons and armor, and trapped with Sigma. The only remnants of safety provided to him were Red’s presence and a soft blanket bundling his lower body - and Red had just tried to kill him. Sigma seemed like he was on the verge of completing that task, with how forcefully his metal fingers dug into Axl’s flesh. “Hold  _ still  _ before you yank your wires apart again,  _ whelp.” _ When the order only pushed Axl into a further state of hysteria, a far more placid voice spoke up.

“Profes-  _ Sigma. _ Let me handle this.” The aimless clanking of Red’s boots ceased, instead making a swift beeline toward Axl’s supine body. Sigma said nothing. The ex-commander silently motioned for Red to take his place, only removing his hands once Red laid a palm flat against Axl’s overheating chest. His face was a stony mask. “Axl. What Sigma intended to convey is that your damages were extensive and repairs numerous. We were concerned that upon waking in an unexpected environment with potential hostiles, your attempt to engage would lead to a reinjury.”

A snort from the peanut gallery. “Concerns not without merit, apparently.”

Red shot Sigma a withering glare. “We are not here to hurt you, Axl.” His pressure on the defenseless reploid’s chest lessened, and with it, fitful thrashing turned to quivering. “If you can control yourself, I’ll carry you to a far more comfortable location, and we will leave the Professor to his work.”

Axl nearly threw an exception trying to process the sheer absurdity of this situation. One borderline unhinged Maverick and one megalomaniacal war criminal had strapped him down to a table and then wanted  _ him _ to control himself? As if  _ he _ was the one most liable to causing himself harm in these circumstances. On any normal day  _ (what even was a normal day anymore?) _ he would have promptly told the duo to smelt themselves before making his daring escape.

...But this  _ wasn’t  _ a normal day, now, was it?

Every process in Axl’s systems  _ roared _ for him to resist. He forced the urges down one by one; stiffened his joints to keep them from struggling against the restraints. Tried to tell Red to release him but his vocal synthesizer was shaky and uncooperative, generating more static than comprehensive speech. 

He settled with a nod. It was short and pleading, but Red recognized his difficulty and took pity on his compromised state. “Sigma, let him go.” No response followed. The metal holding him in place retracted anyway. Before he could so much as move, however, Red had thrown his arms around Axl’s tiny frame, supporting his lower back and legs with one arm and his torso with the other. The pair whipped around and began at a brisk pace toward the door, leaving Sigma behind. Axl finally felt himself exvent upon entering the hall. It was quiet, the background noise of running machines so much more noticeable now that it was fading away. He shifted in Red’s grasp.

This hold was eerily similar to one of Axl’s earliest memories, formed before he’d so much as thought about using his pistols to fight alongside his mentor. Axl buried his face into the crook of Red’s neck to leave the uncanny valley behind and fully embrace the warmth that he remembered. If he couldn’t defeat Red… there was no harm in allowing himself to relax, right?

Axl felt the taller reploid give him a gentle squeeze. The sensation was so comforting in his deepening anxiety that he nearly lost himself in it, almost forgot to activate his systems and use the little information that he could gather to his advantage. A stinging in the back of his neck from his newly installed cables was the only thing keeping him from tipping over that edge. Red was why he was  _ here _ , after all.

He restarted his mapping software and let it track Red’s paces. Perhaps he could route a way out of these dimly lit halls with enough data. He just had to keep his eyes open, match the distance with snapshots of the area to create a mental image of the space-

“Mm, you’re a smart one, Axl.” Red’s voice was an  _ audible _ smirk, a stark contrast to his chilly persona when under Sigma’s calculating gaze. “Keep that up and I’m sure you’ll make some trouble for our guest.” His chin pressed fondly into the crown of Axl’s head. 

The ginger frowned. “How did you know?”

“I’ve trained you since you onlined. Your head wouldn’t be fidgeting for any reason other than the scanning of your surroundings.” A low chuckle escaped Red’s throat. “The bored fidgeting manifests in your hands. You bounce on your feet when you’re nervous. But you have a hunter’s eye; wouldn’t be uselessly destabilizing your vision if you didn’t intend to.”

The air left Axl’s vents. It was common knowledge that Red was dangerously observant, but  _ this… _ Axl hadn’t known half of this about himself. His mentor’s arms suddenly felt less like a hug and more like a bear trap. Another almost-laugh resonated from Red. “We’re nearly there, don’t worry.”

“Why would I be-” Axl paused. It was obvious why he’d be worried. He changed tactics. “What’s so funny?”

“Your foot’s twitching.”

Axl glared at nothing when he realized that Red was infuriatingly correct. He fought to cease his anxious tick and only managed as they rounded a corner. 

Before the pair was a solid metal door, one that had Red loosening his grip on Axl to reach out for the handle. The maw opened with a soft  _ creak. _

Axl’s leg betrayed him once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I've decided to continue this, because bullying my favorite characters is just how I roll, I guess. We like to keep Axl on his toes here.
> 
> #bullyaxl2020
> 
> Merry Festivus y'all


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